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The fighting Nuer: primary sources and the origins of a stereotype

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Douglas H. Johnson
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Extract

In the one hundred and forty years that the Nuer have been known to small audiences outside the Sudan they have almost invariably been presented as truculent and aggressive warriors. They appeared in the nineteenth century exploration literature as archetypical ‘savages’: naked, stubborn and warlike men who were compared to monkeys, to the monkeys' advantage (Baker 1867:60). In the early twentieth century they were thought to be an intractable problem that impeded the peaceful establishment and efficient running of a new colonial administration. In Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard's monographs Nuer feuds and raiding are described as central to the structural relations between Nuer sections and between the Nuer and their neighbours.

Résumé

Les Nuer, peuple belliquex: causes originates et naissance d'un stéréotype.

Les Nuer étaient connus des Européens óien avant que les travaux d'Evans-Pritchard ne les rendent célèbres auprès des anthropologues. Ce fut d'ailleurs en raison de leur importance au cours de la pacification du Soudan méridional que le gouvernement du Soudan reconnut la nécessité d'entreprendre une étude anthropologique de ce peuple. Au cours du siècle qui précéda la pacification finale des Nuer, la situation politique qui régnait dans le Soudan méridional était celle d'un conflit croissant entre les Nuer d'une part et les envahisseurs coloniaux et leurs alliés d'autre part. C'est dans le contexte de ce conflit qu'on en est venu à décrire la société Nuer et à définir le ‘caractère’ Nuer. Il en découla toute une série de stéréotypes que l'on appliquait à ce peuple: l'administration agissait en fonction de ces clichés sur lesquels reposait sa politique et ce fut cette politique administrative qui servit de point de départ aux travaux d'Evans-Pritchard sur les Nuer. En raison des restrictions que l'administration de l'époque avait imposée à ses recherches et de celles qui étaient liées à l'agitation de la société Nuer soumise militairement par le gouvernement, Evans-Pritchard ne fut pas en mesure de procéder à des enquêtes détaillées sur plusieurs aspects de la vie de ce peuple. Ceci eut un effet considérable sur son analyse de la religion Nuer, des rapports entre Nuer et groupes étrangers et de la structure politique Nuer. Bien qu'Evans-Pritchard ait critiqué de nombreux aspects de la politique gouvernementale à l'égard des Nuer et qu'il n'ait pas accepté certaines des affirmations de ses prédécesseurs sur ces derniers, il finit par inclure dans son analyse les conclusions de plusieurs des observateurs qui l'avaient précédé.

Type
Outsiders: ethnic stereotypes
Information
Africa , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , January 1981 , pp. 508 - 527
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1981

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